I had a fantasy. Ray hired me back. I let Brad do all the things to my body he ever imagined.
But I didn’t have enough of an imagination to make the relationship permanent. So what happened to Nicole? I couldn’t be the first of many that drifted in and out of her life. I couldn’t break her heart.
The standard-issue dog pack of paparazzi hung out behind the velvet rope. They usually ignored me, which worked out perfectly, thank you.
I didn’t even look at them or look down when I passed. My mind was on Nicole, who I loved, and Brad, who was the worst kind of person in the nicest kind of package, berating myself for giving up one so I could have the other. I couldn’t see a way around it. Couldn’t see a way to have them both. Or even one without the other.
I approached the guy in the suit who let people in (or not) and was about to say my name when I heard it, loud and clear.
“Cara DuMont!”
I looked to the source of the call, and never found it, because it was drowned out by the entire dog pack calling my name and the uncomfortable sight of black lenses pointed in my direction.
“Miss DuMont!”
“Where did you get those shoes?”
“Where’s Brad Sinclair?”
“What did you say when he mooned you?”
“How was that kiss last night?”
I swallowed my heart and lungs in one gulp, but they lodged in my throat.
The kiss.
On the path to the pool house.
Of course someone had seen it, but I hadn’t seen anything on the web about it. No pictures had surfaced. Had I missed it? Who knew about it? Everyone? Insiders? The public? What were they saying? Was I a whore? Was I a curiosity? Who was I? I couldn’t hear, taste, feel anything outside the fracture in my sense of self.
“Miss DuMont,” the man with the dark suit said. I looked at him. Forties. Kind face. Tablet tucked in the crook of his arm.
“Yes.” I could barely get my voice past the organs stuck in my throat.
“This way.”
He led me through the doors, through the packed, loud room with the high ceilings. I recognized Fiona Drazen and Neville Rage without taking my eyes off the ma?tre d’s back. I didn’t want to know if they were looking back at me.
Ray stood when he saw me. Next to him, Kendall smiled with her long, shiny hair and bangly earrings. The ma?tre d’ held a chair out for me, and Ray sat after I did.
Kendall tucked her hair behind her right ear with her left hand. The stone in the engagement ring was the size of a lightbulb and twice as bright. She was my age. Taller. Richer. More sophisticated but not more worldly.
I didn’t know why I felt as if I had to compare myself to her. My name on the lips of a pack of paps had left me exposed to my vulnerabilities.
“Thank you for coming,” Ray said.
“I’m happy to. I’m sorry about what happened with Willow. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“It’s fine—”
“We want you to know,” Kendall interrupted Ray, “that we don’t approve at all. She’s too young, for goodness’ sake.”
“She was supposed to be at volleyball practice.”
They jumped on each other’s sentences. It was kind of cute.
“And we spoke to the mother of the girl she was supposed to get a lift from.”
“The nanny was supposed to drive them home.”
“Never told us Willow wasn’t in the car.”
“Said it wasn’t her job.”
“And the woman we hired lost track completely.”
“And we thought you’d never do that.”
“Never.”
“Never, ever.”
They ran out of story. I let the end hang there. The waiter came and we ordered.
I didn’t know what I wanted out of these people. I’d come in hoping they’d offer me a job so I could leave Brad with another job ready, but sitting there, wondering what inconstant parenting had to do with Willow’s troubles, what they’d mean for Nicole, how much I wanted Brad, and what a fool I’d been to think we could keep it under wraps, I doubted everything. I was falling into the cracks between all the things I wanted.
“And Willow?” I asked. “She’s old enough to be held accountable.”
“Of course!” Ray said.
“I took her phone away for a week,” Kendall said with finality.
“Did she tell you to go fuck yourself?”
I even flinched from my filterless comment, but Ray laughed.
Kendall didn’t look amused.
“She’ll live,” Ray said. “My lovely bride-to-be might not.” He put his arm around Kendall, and she pushed him off playfully, but without any real humor. She was mad. Willow must have sparked quite a row. I could only imagine the screaming, and Jedi hiding in his room with his Legos.
“I think you’ll be fine,” I said. “I honestly . . . I don’t know what you want out of me. I’ve never gone to the press with any kid’s problem.”
“We were worried,” Kendall said.
“Not really,” Ray interrupted.
“You didn’t work for us when you saw her. The NDA didn’t cover incidents after we terminated you.”
“Oh, Kendie,” Ray said, exasperated. “You don’t get it.”
“Look, this is business, honey.”
“Yes and no. Mostly no.”
She flipped her wrist at him and her bracelets bangled.
“There’s money involved,” Kendall insisted. “It’s business.”
“It’s more complicated—”
“You didn’t have her sign anything to earn the severance.”
“You guys are making me nuts,” I broke in. “Can we get to the point?”
Kendall leaned back and crossed her arms, her body language deferring the entire matter to her husband, who looked as if he now wanted to crawl under a rock and die.
“Just say whatever it is, Ray,” I said. “I won’t walk out. I’m hungry.”
Ray put his elbows on the table. His cuffs hiked to show off a thick gold bracelet I hadn’t seen before. It was no more than another stylish bauble, but it reminded me how much money and power he had. How many connections.
“Willow’s young, and her mistakes can follow her for a long time.”
“You know I’m not going to start calling people.”
“Maybe not now. But if something else happens and it goes public, people are going to come to you for background. She’s not covered with this incident. Legally, you could talk and we don’t want that.”
It was my turn to lean back and cross my arms. How many ways could I tell this guy I wasn’t going to hurt Willow?
“So,” he said, pulling an envelope from his inside pocket. “In here is an agreement to not disclose what happened and where you saw her. It’s the same NDA, give or take, as you signed when you were hired.”
I took the envelope. I could sign it just so these two could sleep at night. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to say anything anyway. I opened the envelope. Ray picked a pen out of his inside pocket.
“And if you sign it,” Kendall said, “it’s ten thousand for you.”